Any Battle Strategies for Hawks?

[Dr Pickens]

in Lincoln city limits you must have a permit to have more than 2 chickens and no Roosters allowed. Some of the requirements are a hard surface, 5 feet away from neighboring fence, and 50 feet from homes...to name a few. On the permit application want to know the sq ft of the property when they will be living, How you plan to dispose waste, a diagram of their physical residence, and they come to the location to inspect. If the requirements are not met you do not get a permit.

 

[lilchickenz]

To be honest I think it will always be a risk if they are out free ranging. I wouldn't count on being out there with them to deter hawks. Yesterday a hawk went after my chickens and I was out in the yard. I was on the other side of the garage removing a wasp nest, but it wasn't that far away. When I went back and watched the video I made of the wasp removal the hawk was circling overhead so it definitely knew I was there. I guess it was really hungry. I'm also unsure about keeping them in for a while to discourage the hawks. I suppose if you don't have any close neighbors with chickens that might work, but in my case I live in town with many close neighbors also keeping chickens. This hawk has moved into the neighborhood and unless I and all my neighbors keep our chickens in for weeks I doubt it's going to be moving on any time soon. If you want to free range your chickens you'll probably have to accept the risk they might get taken by predators.

 

[cmom]

I had a hawk kill a bird not 10 feet away from me. It happened so fast. The hawk did not take the bird. My DH was out in front of our garage cutting some wood on his table saw and we had a small temporary pen next to him and a hawk swooped in and grabbed a chick. I don't free range anymore due to losses in the past but my birds have nice large pens covered with good heavy duty netting. I also have concrete under the gates and electric wires around the coops and pens. I have opened the gates to let the birds out but they seem to prefer to stay in their nice shady pens. My land it open pasture land so they have more shade in their pens. I had an owl go through some crappy netting that I have since replaced with some good netting. It kill some birds. I moved the birds to another coop and pen and put a camera in that pen and the owl came back. After I replaced the crappy netting the owl came back and got caught in it. We manged to get it into a cage and a wildlife rescue came and got it.

 

[cmom]

This is my property. There are trees across the street and on one side and behind us.